


The Cat's Meow

by still_intrepid



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Animal Transformation, Austria; Hungary; Estonia; Latvia; Czechia in minor roles, Diana Wynne Jones inspired, Disguise, F/M, Gen, Humour, M/M, Magic, lietpol secret santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 04:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17196926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_intrepid/pseuds/still_intrepid
Summary: As the eldest of three brothers, Toris knew he would never amount to much.  Content with, if not exactly excited about, his lot, he helps his parents at their theatre, working behind the scenes, keeping things running smoothly.  But after rescuing a very peculiar cat, he finds himself caught up in a race against time to determine the fate of the whole kingdom.Curses! Conspiracy! Disguises! Enchanted pie!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you!! 
> 
> This is officially the longest secret santa I have ever written or hope to ever write again in my entire life, GOOD GRIEF.
> 
> Set in some made-up pan-European fantasy mish-mash land so please try not to worry too much about the names, they were never going to make sense! (For ref, Hedvika is Czechia, but I'm afraid she doesn't really feature too heavily!)
> 
> Thank you to my girlfriend for reading over an early draft of this, and to my mum for letting me bounce fanfic ideas off her before Christmas!!

At that time, there lived an eldest brother with his parents, and he worked in their theatre in the Royal City.  His name was Toris and he knew he should be more than contented with his lot.

The kingdom was prosperous and peaceful at present, which it might not have been, considering the tragedy that had befallen the royal household fifteen years ago. It was the law of that country that one could not officially be king or queen before reaching the age of majority. So after the old Queen and King had died, leaving their two children mere babes, the throne stood empty. The old King had never been strong and it had been a surprise he had hung on for the few years he had after the Queen's death before succumbing to either hereditary infirmity or a broken heart. But he had in this time set his affairs quite in order, and while the young Prince and Princess grew up the country had been governed capably by a regency council, led by the royal couple's old friend, General Zima.  

Toris was not very interested in royal goings on.  The country, certainly the Royal City where he’d lived all his life, seemed to him to operate perfectly well without their interference.  The city was full of commerce, and art, and a day's journey away was the prestigious magic college attended by his brothers,and at least two of the most famous magicians on the continent still lived nearby, and none of that had anything to do with royalty.  In fact, Toris was sure the plays performed in his parents' theatre had far more influence over the lives and opinions of ordinary people than any proclamation from the palace.

But there was a lot of royal talk about just then, because in three months' time, the Prince Ignatius would reach the age of majority and officially accede to kingship.  The royal siblings were thus to present themselves in public a number of times prior to this great occasion, in order to give the common people a chance to get to know and love them.  And in just a few days, they would be attending a performance at the Fortune Playhouse.

Naturally people were excitable.

❧❧❧

"And we must prepare fully an _hour_ of music in case the royal procession is delayed!" the starched chief musician lamented to the young woman who organised the tumbling and stage-fighting, as everyone hurried into morning rehearsal.  

The chief musician had been telling everyone this for the last two weeks and was really very pleased at the opportunity to show off.

The organiser of the stage-fights however was not at all pleased, because the royal visit had meant several of her more spectacular routines had been cut out or amended in the interests of safety ("ridiculous!") or propriety ("the prince and princess aren't cowards!")

"Toris, can't you do something?” she asked him for the fourth time that week, “Have a word with your parents, _please;_ it just won't be the same.  If you don't, we just might have to do some _rehearsed improvisation_ , if you know what I mean."

"Don't _,_ " said Toris, "if you go off-script Natasha will have kittens."

"That’s true,” she sighed, still looking mutinous.

"Look, Bet," said Toris, once the chief musician had strode away importantly, waving his baton at no one in particular, "I can't promise anything, you know it’s not up to me.  But I'll talk to Justyna again about the ballet, alright?"

"The sword ballet."

"I can't promise anything," Toris repeated, deciding he would tell her that afternoon about the concession involving the sword ballet he had already arranged with his mother.

"Thanks tons, Toris," Bet said, "you're a jewel."

She sprang away, in some sort of forthright dance step that Toris could certainly believe might involve swords.

Once the cast and crew were all present and correct, Toris locked up the front door and went off to fill Natasha in on the intended revisions to the script.  Natasha was the Book-Holder, whose role it was to keep track of props and also to sit in the box by the front of the stage and prompt the actors if necessary.  This particular play, being for the royal audience, would be rehearsed to within an inch of its life and woe betide the performer who missed a single line, but in usual times the house company might run two plays in repertory with frequent cast changes and understudies.

He found her where he expected to, up in the rafters, reading a book.  Toris tried to keep from her the name the company and even some of the patrons had started playfully attaching to her: _the theatre ghost._ She was there most of the time, shrouded in from throat to ankle to fingertip in old fashioned dresses with high necks and full skirts and white gloves even in high summer, long pale hair hanging loose in front of her face.  And she hardly ever spoke. Most people had heard her say more lines from plays than words of her own. She made no move as Toris poked his head up into the attic.

"Natasha?"

He would never dream of tapping her on the shoulder: that would be to risk getting punched in the face.

"We're restoring the original choreography in act 3 scene 2—Lisabet's sword ballet thing, remember?"

"Does Justyna say?"

Justyna was Toris' mother and co owner and manager of the Fortune. She was one of the only people to whom Natasha afforded deep respect.  

"I've cleared it with her, don't worry," Toris said.

Natasha finished pencilling a note in her script and nodded.  "Fine."

That was all the conversation he was likely to get out of her, so Toris headed back down the  ladder.

He liked Natasha, but it seemed hopeless; she certainly didn't like him. Or maybe he didn't like anyone, except his mother.  And her own elder brother. Toris felt an anxious gloom settle over him as he thought of Natasha's brother, Ivan.

The two of them were actually part of some decayed noble family, related to General Zima. Toris thought that connection was largely why his parents accepted the siblings at the theatre; not that they were in thrall to nobility, but you didn't want to upset such people, did you?  Natasha was no problem, she worked hard and was useful, in her little niche, but Ivan... Ivan was difficult. Toris just hoped rehearsal would keep them all extremely busy with no free time today.

❧❧❧

The day wore on.  Actors and musicians warmed up, blocking was gone over, lights were checked and aligned, costumes were adjusted and set detail painted.  Toris sent prentices out to pick up lunch from the nearby cafe and went himself to the hardware store to try to negotiate a good price for all the sundry last minute items they seemed to need.  He returned in time to grab a quick lunch himself, and arbitrate a dispute between at least four fractious, tearful members of the children's chorus.

The performance was in three days, and looking at it now you would never believe it would be ready in time.  Things seemed to be unravelling rapidly rather than the other way about. (This always happened and Toris knew it, but it didn't make him feel any better.)

❧❧❧

Darius shooed Toris out of the theatre at seven o' clock.  "We'll finish up here, lad," he said, wiping painty hands on his apron and looking distractedly up into the rafters, "you've been here every day this week."

"I'll cook," Toris offered, as he always did.

A sheepish grin spread across his father's broad face.  "What would we do without you?" he said.

"It's alright," Toris said, "I like cooking."

This was true.  It was calming, and he genuinely liked being alone with his thoughts while he prepared food; alone with his thoughts and with the ingredients.  

But what did it say, he wondered, that the highlight of his day was going home alone to cook a hearty casserole?  Oh, the theatre was good work, and clearly brought such joy to his parents and to the hundreds of patrons who passed through its doors.  But...

Well he was the _eldest son_ , with two much more talented younger brothers.  Eduard had a fantastic voice and a scholarship to the magic college.  He proclaimed his ambition to be the best spell-singer in the world, and it seemed quite possible that he would be.  And Raivis, though he got nervous and flubbed exams, was so, so intelligent and interested in everything. He had in fact written the play they were currently rehearsing, though it had been edited since of course, when he was just 14.  That had been only a summer's distraction for him. He was studying at the magic college too and would probably go on to invent some fantastic new spell that would revolutionise lives and make all their fortunes.

 _They_ would follow their dreams...

Lost in thought, Toris almost walked straight into the path of an oncoming horse and cart.  He should have been paying attention of course, but part of the reason was the cat.

It was sitting in the middle of the road, a small black cat like a patch of darkness, washing itself and looking pathetic.  It looked up at him with a flash of bright yellow-green eyes. Subconsciously Toris must have thought it was safe to cross, because no cat would be so stupid as to sit washing itself there, deaf to the noise of wheels on cobbles.

Everything happened in a moment: Toris, halfway across the road suddenly aware of the thunderous sound five feet from him, the carter yelling, the horse rearing, and then he had snatched up the cat from under its hooves and half-jumped half-fallen backwards onto the kerb, tripped over his feet and landed on his rear with the cat clutched to his chest.

The carter yelled something about idiotic young people and carried on down the road.

"Ow..." Toris put the cat down and got unsteadily to his feet.  

The cat stood there stiff and didn't move.

"You alright there?  That was pretty frightening."  Toris sighed. "I'd ask what on earth you were doing sitting in the middle of road but I can't exactly judge now, can I?"  He crouched and tentatively patted its silky head. The cat was shivering. Toris began to wonder if it was hurt, although he couldn't see anything wrong with it.  

After a moment's hesitation and looking around, Toris picked the cat up.  The cat, apparently in shock, hardly moved, and didn't unstiffen his limbs.  Toris felt rather silly as he walked back carrying what might as well have been a prop cat in his arms.  

❧❧❧

Toris put the cat down on an armchair when he got home and set to cooking.

He poured out a saucer of milk and cut a sliver off the fish they had on ice.  The cat drank the milk but turned his nose at the fish.

"Maybe you're tired, cat," Toris sighed, thinking it was a terrible waste.

His parents still had not returned by the time the casserole was out of the oven, and Toris knew if could be hours yet, so he sat down to eat.  The cat, who was not settling at all, now took up position next to his chair and mewled.

Toris looked dubiously at his plate.  "This doesn't even have meat in," he objected, "besides, it's hot."

The cat sprang up on to his lap and put its paws up on the table.

"H-hey!" Toris pushed his plate back.  "Alright, but you won't like it."

He waved the cat out of his way, put a forkful of leeks and potatoes onto a saucer and put the saucer on the floor.  To his surprise, the cat sniffed, gave the food one dainty lick and then set to with a will.

"Mrow!" it said happily, and stretched up on Toris' legs again.

"You are a very strange cat," Toris told it as he went to the pot to scoop a second, larger portion.  "But it's nice to have someone so enthusiastic about my cooking."


	2. Chapter 2

Toris took the cat to the playhouse the next day, where he soon acquired the name Lucky, because of his colour, and because of his good fortune in being rescued by Toris instead of run over by a cart.  Almost as soon however most people had decided that "Nuisance" would be a better fit. Lucky got under everyone's feet. He ran _away_ from rats.  He was excessively friendly, clingy and noisy with everyone, but especially Toris.  There was no way to explain to him that the stage was _not_ an appropriate place for him; he obviously felt it was, as the most exciting and populated area of the theatre.  He did not seem bound by either logic or normal cat behaviour.

Thinking he might go to sleep, Toris tried shutting him in a basket.  Lucky instantly set off a tremendous racket, screaming and crying and scratching as if he was being murdered.  This did for any plans of putting him a quiet room until later, chances were they'd return to find the walls and furniture torn to shreds.

Eventually, perhaps exhausted by this outburst, Lucky submitted himself to be carried by Toris at all times, or to drape himself around his neck, like a furry scarf.  

"Oh isn't he _cute!"_ Bet cooed, running up to Toris in the middle of rehearsing the restored sword ballet.

"He's evil," Toris grumped.  Lucky opened one eye and extended his claws, but was apparently too lazy to risk eviction from his elevated place by actually scratching.

"He likes you."

"Well I don't like him, he's nothing but trouble.  You hear me, cat?"

"Mrow," said Lucky complacently, and batted the side of Toris' head, without any real force, as if he understood every word, and also knew that it wasn't really true.  

❧❧❧

Ivan cornered him at lunch.  Toris supposed it was his turn.  They sat in the stalls, eating their pasties and kettle chips, and Toris listened to Ivan pour out his woes.

"It's not fair though," Ivan was saying, " _some people_ get to direct _and_ star, and the rest of us are left with the scraps."

Toris felt a flush of anger run through him.  "If that's my mother you're talking about, it's her theatre!  And she's not the _star_ anyway."

It was the first time in months he'd stood up to Ivan like this.  For a second Ivan looked thrown.

"Well I'm sorry," he said, not sounding it.  His face fell suddenly into a still stormier misery.  "Of course, I don't have parents. If I had parents like yours Toris, maybe I'd have turned out different.  Better. Maybe... I'd be someone people could stand to be around."

"Oh, Ivan..." Toris began hopelessly.  "Ivan, you're a good actor and great with the sets and stuff, and everyone really appreciates the work you do here."

"No they don't."

This was the worst of arguments with Ivan.  You started by trying to make some point or suggestion or _anything_ , and ended up like this, chasing him with comfort and reassurance that he really was perfect and everyone loved him.

Lucky the cat chose that moment to wake up, stretch, and leap off Toris' lap onto Ivan, who looked surprised and then tried to pet him.  Lucky twisted swift as lightening and bit him, though not hard.

"Lucky!" Toris scolded.  "Bad cat!"—as if that did any good.  

As he picked Lucky up and, apologising, backed away to take him elsewhere, Toris wondered obscurely if the cat had been listening to their conversation.  The unfortunate result of the incident of course was that Ivan was now further convinced in his belief that everyone, even animals, just hated him for no reason.  But on the plus side, and it was a big big plus, Lucky had provided a distraction and an escape from that conversation, and now Toris had the rest of lunch to himself.

"Thank you," he murmured to the cat, "I appreciate the effort."

Behind him, he thought he saw Natasha melting out of the shadows, hands outstretched to comfort her brother, and Ivan turning his face way.

❧❧❧

A vaguely irritated, itchy feeling followed Toris all through the rest of the day and home to the kitchen.  Maybe it was everyone's stress about the upcoming play, but he thought it was probably Ivan. Maybe Ivan was right, and if he'd nice parents like Darius and Justyna but...  The thing was Darius and Justyna _were_ in many ways like parents to many waifs and strays of the Fortune company and crew.  There was Natasha for one, and Toris remembered a brilliant if mercurial and over-dramatic teenage girl who had starred in several productions and, who know he thought about it, had also had no parents of her own.  His parents' love and welcome was surely as available to Ivan as to anyone else, Toris thought huffily as he worked pastry, and Ivan rejecting it was no one's fault but his own. But maybe that was just Toris being selfish, seeing everything from his own, privileged point of view, just like Ivan always said...

Ivan's people were nobles, right?  Why did he have to hang around the theatre making everyone unhappy?

"I wish Ivan would just _go_ off the royal court or whatever," he said aloud, slapping the pastry down hard one more time.  "I wish he'd never come to the Fortune at all."

A shiver ran through him and Lucky the cat yowled, leapt off his perch on top of the armchair and ran across to rub against his legs.

"I'm alright," Toris said to the cat, feeling foolish.  "I just... it's not just him. It's me, it's _everything_."

"Mrow?" said Lucky, in what definitely sounded like an enquiring tone.

"Everyone else at the Fortune wants to be there.  And I do too, of course. Anyway there isn't anything else I want to do.  There's nothing else I _can_ do.  There's nothing I'm really _good_ at, not like Eduard or Raivis.  When they had us doing elementary magic in school I couldn't even levitate the hand mirror or make a penny bright or anything.  And I mean, that's fine, it's not as if I want to do magic, not really. But... is this it? Is this my whole life?" He'd spoken these last, unbearably maudlin, words into the air above the stove, and now he looked down at Lucky.  

The cat was still leaning against his legs.  His eyes were closed, his mouth drooping opening and a light rumble came from his chest.

"Are you _asleep?_ " Toris said, outraged despite himself.  It was probably just as well though, he didn't really want even a cat to have heard all that.  Lucky opened one eye again. He wasn't asleep. He continued to purr. "Oh alright then," Toris said, and crouched down to rub the cat's ears.  Lucky purred still louder. "Thank you for listening, I suppose. I better get this pie in the oven."

He stood up to wash his hands again before continuing, and as soon as he stepped away Lucky followed him and started whining loudly.

Something was making him restive, or maybe he just felt that Toris had had his turn at talking and he now had some things to say.  Unfortunately, Toris could make absolutely nothing of the mewls and yowls.

"You're really not happy either, huh?" he said.  "Food soon, though! Human food, you weird thing."

"Mroooow."

Toris sighed and picked up the pie dish full of ham and spinach pie.  "I _wish_ you could tell me what the matter is!" he said as he put it in the oven.

❧❧❧

 

"It's still hot," Toris warned as he put down the cat's saucer of pie.  

"Mrow," said Lucky, which was as much of a thank you as Toris ever got, and started to eat immediately.

After one mouthful, he sprang back from the dish, convulsing and retching as if he had a fur-ball.

"Stop being so dramatic!  It's not like I've poisoned you!" Toris exclaimed, beginning to wonder if he _had_.

Lucky was rolling on the ground in apparent distress.

Toris dropped to his knees.  "Lucky?"

He reached out to hold the cat's shoulders, and suddenly there was a bump and a change.

Where a moment ago there had been a small black cat — a cat to whom Toris had bared his soul in the most embarrassing terms — there was now a young man wearing only a nightshirt, with a pale face and yellow hair and the same bright yellow-green eyes.

He sneezed twice. “Odd socks and bodkins!” he said miserably. “I’m _allergic_ to cats!”


	3. Chapter 3

"And your name really is Feliks?"

Darius and Justyna had returned home, and now all four of them sat around the table discussing the strange situation.

"Yes," said their guest, "I honestly don't remember much else at all. But I know that's my name, and when Toris called me Lucky, I thought it was like... a sign, and you'd be able to help me!"

"B-but," put in Toris, "help you?  I can't even do elementary magic..."

"You turned me back!  Well, the pie did. Your pie.  It must be magic."

Feliks had relapsed twice back into a cat, and turned back into a human only after eating another bite of pie, although no subsequent transformation had been as dramatic as the first.  He was now wearing some of Toris' clothes and had washed his face and combed his hair and, especially as the rate of sneezes decreased, he looked not only presentable but handsome.

"Maybe the spell was wearing off anyway, or it was... weak against ham, or something," Toris suggested.

"Well, whatever, I'm just totally glad it works."

"And do you think you can hold this form now?" Darius asked.

"Um." Feliks wrinkled his nose.  "No. No, I don't think so or like...  You know when you have hiccups? Or like you're going to sneeze.  And you can just feel the next one coming along. It's like that. If I stop concentrating I feel BAM!  Cat."

"I _thought_ you were a weird cat," said Toris.

"It was a nightmare!  I'm suddenly like a foot tall, and running through the streets, and then you rescue me—but then everyone expects me to eat _raw meat_ and face up to rats who, by the way, are nearly as big as I am!"

"And all you can say is _mroooow_ ," said Justyna, in an uncannily good imitation of Feliks' most piteous mewling.

The mood became serious again.

"Since we can't turn Feliks back, Toris," she continued, "you need to get him to someone who can."

"Me?"

"He can't go _alone._ "

"Can't we wait until..."

"Until after the play?" Darius interrupted.  "No I don't think that would be wise. None of us knows anything about magic, this sort of spell, we don't know how it works, if it works over time...  What if he gets stuck as cat forever?"

"Alright alright I'll go!" Toris yelled.  "I mean—Feliks, not that I don't want to help you, of course I do!  But, the play..."

"Will be just fine," Darius assured him.  "Be back by lunch the day after tomorrow. You've got everything set up and we'll just have to muddle through, like we always do.  We've had main cast members take sick days before curtain after all."

" _Not_ this week," said Justyna, her blue eyes steely, "they wouldn't dare.  Toris, Feliks, you can start tomorrow morning."

The difficult was who to go to for help.  They only really knew the technical people who made theatrical effects—these were certainly expert, for all outsiders looked down their noses—but specialised. And on stage you never did anything like transforming people into animals or taking away their memories.

“The Fantastic François!” said Feliks sudddenly. Toris looked at him in surprise. “The name just came into my head."

“Of course!” said Justyna.

“Would he _see_ us?” asked Toris. Everyone had heard of the Fantastic François, either the best or the second-best magician in the realm. The other contender for the title was Madame Marianne, and their rivalry was reputedly so fierce that the palace dared not appoint either one as royal wizard for fear of offending the other. “He’ll be for rich folks, surely.”

“We’re not _poor_ , Toris,” Justyna said.

“And I’ll pay you back for anything you spend!” Feliks volunteered.

“Besides which,” Darius said thoughtfully, “well, if this is a serious spell, he should be _interested._ ”

"How come you remembered that name?" Toris asked.  "Are _you_ a magician?"

Feliks frowned.  "I don't think so," he said.  "Doesn't ring any bells. Uh..." He pointed a finger at his own chest. "Recall memories!" he commanded.  "Nope."

"Anyway," said Justyna, "you can walk to the Western woods in a few hours—you know, where we pick mushrooms, shame they’re not for a month yet.  And if this Fantastic fellow can’t help, you should have time to reach Madame Marianne by nightfall.”

That seemed to be settled.   

Feliks let out a sigh of relief and collapsed back into a cat again.

Darius looked at him.  "I think you had better wrap up the rest of this pie to take with you on the journey."

❧❧❧

They reached the woods before midday.  Toris carried a knapsack full of essentials, food, including a good quarter of the pie—and Feliks.  After less than a mile Feliks had announced that he couldn't hold his human shape all morning and didn't want to waste the pie with extra transformations.  Toris had a sneaking suspicion he just preferred to be carried. He wasn't especially heavy in cat form, but Toris found he missed him as someone to talk to.

The Fantastic François' residence was not at all what he had expected.  It comprised a two-storey building with pink walls and green shutters, almost entirely grown about with roses.  It looked much more like something out a picture book portrayal of a witch or wizard than any of the sleek and sophisticated towers of modern spell-singers or even the smart brass-plated city places of even the moderately well-to-do magician.  Toris thought that his brothers would probably advise him to return to the city and try one of these instead, but personally he felt very warmly towards the little house.

"Well," he said, as Feliks scrambled out of the knapsack onto his shoulders.  "This is it."

He knocked.

A bell echoed somewhere in the depths of the house, which was confusing both because the house couldn't be large enough to contain such an echo, and because he hadn't run a bell.

A moment later the door opened and the most splendid person Toris had ever seen stood in the door way.  The effect was easily the equal of anything seen upon the Fortune's stage. He wondered if royalty dressed this way, but suspected they would be rather more restrained.  This person was fully and formally dressed in a changeable fabric he suspected was silk which looked blue from one angle and purple from another. His honey-coloured hair fell in elegant waves past his shoulders and he wore a plumed hat and a half-mask of royal blue and gold.  The visible side of the face was beautiful: pale and stern, except for his laughing blue eyes.

"François the magician," he announced in a low melodious voice, as if there could be any doubt, "at your service."

Feliks was suddenly scrabbling madly around Toris' shoulders, trying to get back inside the pack.  "Alright!" Toris hissed, "just hold still a second!!"

He dumped Feliks on the ground, swung the knapsack around to his front and broke off a piece of pie.

In another second, Feliks was dusting himself off and standing tall, or at least as tall as he could, which put him a good few inches below Toris and a clear half-foot shorter than François.

"Can I just say," he panted, "I _love_ your outfit."

François clapped his hands delightedly.  "Oh, that's _very_ good!  A full transfiguration, I had really no idea!  Which of your magics is it? And thank you so much darling, I have them specially made and so many patrons, it's as if they don't even notice."

"It's neither of our magic," Toris said.  "He's under a curse, at least we think so.  We hoped you might be able to help."

"A curse to fix him in feline form until he eats spinach and ham pie?" François asked.  "That I admit is a new one on me."

"No, I made the pie but, you see he keeps turning back!"

"Yeah, it's sort of like hiccups?" Feliks tried to explain.  "You know how you try to hold them back but sometimes they just—"

"Hiccups?  Pie? I think you two had better come in and tell me the whole story from the beginning."

❧❧❧

The parlour François ushered them into, and the fine tea and petit fours he served them while they talked, were just as perfectly elegant as the house front and the magician's clothes.

François had them tell the story from the beginning and Feliks demonstrate turning into a cat and back again, before announcing that he was unable to help.

"It's a different kind of magic," he said.  "Quite criminally under-valued and under-appreciated by the College, and we now see quite the damage this attitude causes!  Alas even I am still ham-stringed by the education I received at that backwards institution." He shook his head sadly, rippling the golden locks of his hair.  "You're very much along the right lines with that pie though, I can see that."

"I am?" Toris asked.

"Yes.  You'll probably figure it in a little while.  And if it's not too much trouble, you could come back and update me once you've managed it.  This magic something we're very interested in studying.."

"We?" said Toris weakly, unable to process the rest of this where François _seemed_ to be suggesting that he, Toris, was responsible for turning Feliks right again...

"Myself and my assistant," François explained, just as someone else came into the parlour from a hallway.

"His _librarian_ ," said this young man with a wry smile.  This seemed to be some private joke between them.  

"Arthur: Toris, and his friend Feliks who has a transfiguration issue.  Toris, Feliks: Arthur." François indicated each with an elegant wave of his long sleeves.

"Are you a magician too?" Feliks asked.

"I dabble," said Arthur, and again it seemed like this was some kind of joke; François rolled his eyes behind his half-mask.

You could hardly imagine a greater contrast in appearance and style between two young men in the same profession.  Arthur was dressed clothes that probably had once been black but were now grey with dust and wear; the sleeves were rolled up but the trousers were too short and exposed an inch of ankle above each scruffy work-boot.  He had messy sandy hair and fierce dark eyebrows.

"As I was saying," François explained, partly for the benefit of the newcomer, "embarrassing as this is, I find myself unable to materially help."

"O-oh," said Toris, not knowing what else to say.   _Are you sure?  Thank you for trying?_  "Do, do you know anyone who might?" he asked.  "A city practitioner perhaps, or, we thought Madame Marianne...?"

"Not she!" François laughed.  "All flash and show and no substance.  Oh she knows her stuff alright, and her brewing _is_ second-to-none, and she does a lot of very original work in general..." he seemed to lose his thread.  "But you won't get help from _her_."

❧❧❧

"I bet she can do it," said Toris stubbornly, as they trudged out through the woods again. "He was just saying because they're rivals."

"Hmm.  I think this "rivalry"'s a pretty good deal for François," said Feliks.  "Marianne too I shouldn't be surprised. It keeps them both top of the tree."

"That's a good point."

"What was that about different kinds of magic?" Feliks asked.  "He seemed to think you could, like... do it."

"I can't," said Toris shortly.  He hadn't quite been able to explain it to François: _I'm_ not a magician!  And he'd forgotten to ask all the important questions: would the spell become permanent? and what about Feliks' memory?  

For all that though, Toris felt strangely good, walking with Feliks on a crisp September day, skirting the edge of the woods.  Maybe it was the woods, where he always felt good, or simply not being in the theatre for a whole day. Maybe it was Feliks, who seemed to have settled in human form at least for the time being.  It was another few hours to Madame Marianne's and after the tea and cakes in François' parlour, they walked half the distance before breaking for a late lunch.

❧❧❧

The house of Madame Marianne was white, edged about with a lot of black eaves and gables for its size. It was climbed all over by jasmine and honeysuckle, smelling already of evening. Set in a natural clearing, it was lit by lancing shafts of sunlight through the trees, as pretty an effect as any conjured by grilles and lighting on the stage. The whole effect was definitely magical, dramatic and slightly mysterious.

Madame Marianne herself when she appeared was equally impressive, dressed in a swirling red cloak over a modish peacock dress that fitted her figure closely, with chestnut hair in elaborate ringlets piled atop her head.  

"I am Marianne, seer of things unseen and knower of things unknown.  What is the aid and truth you seek?"

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, Feliks, in cat form once more, was scrabbling at Toris' knapsack for pie.  Toris couldn't see what was so urgent, but complied.

Feliks brushed himself off and sneezed. 

"This outfit is legitimate _gorgeous_ too and all," he said, "but... you're Fantastic François, aren't you?"


	4. Chapter 4

"I could deny it, of course," Marianne (or was it François?) said over her (his?) shoulder as they all trooped into another, more darkly picturesque, parlour.  "Behold the hair, it's a subtly different shade, and the eyes: would you call these violet?  I would. That's attention to detail! And how could I possibly have got to my house from his in the time without meeting you on the road?

"Well, you're almost the first to see through me.  I never thought to proof my disguises against cats.  Sit, sit! ... This is a dead secret, naturally. But it deserves another round of tea at least, though Madame Marianne tends to serve esoteric blends, alcohol at all hours, or pomegranate juice—whatever you'd prefer."

When Toris and Feliks made no immediate response, she rattled on: "And clearly I didn't manage to reassure you or send you on your way to nurturing your hidden talent, Toris, so we shall have to see about that."

Toris and Feliks' mouths hung open.

"Which one are you?" Feliks demanded, "Which are you really?"

"What question to ask a lady!  Or a gentleman. As a matter of fact my parents named me Clare.  But at present I find Marianne and François much more replete with possibility, and as to which, it varies from day to day."

"Clare!?" Toris exclaimed.  "You used to perform at the Fortune!  My parent's theatre!"

She stared at him.  " _Toris_.  Of course.  Now I remember you.  Oh how I miss my misspent youth; nothing so misspent as the four years at college however."

"You  really don't like the magic college, do you?"  Toris asked. "My brothers go there."

"She doesn't mean to disparage.  We just have... some philosophical differences, with the magic college," said another voice.  Arthur walked into the room. "Hello again." And to Marianne: "I see someone figured you at last, dear."

Marianne nodded, exaggerating melancholy.  "You've met Arthur: my husband."

Husband!  

"And _also_ her librarian, assistant and whatever else we said."

Just then, the front door bell jangled.

"If you'll excuse me," said Marianne, standing up in a rustle of satin.  "I shall try not to keep you waiting for long."

Arthur followed her.  Toris suspected he always listened in on guests' first introductions from somewhere out of sight.  

They had no difficulty in hearing this guest announce himself, even from the parlour.

A trumpet sounded a brief fanfare, and a shrill voice announced: " _Heed now to this most royal and august decree!"_

"It's a royal messenger!" Toris whispered, and got up from his seat to follow Arthur.

But Feliks seized his arm,  "No don't!"

"But what—?"

The shock had apparently startled Feliks so much he turned back into a cat.  He ran off in the other direction and Toris ran after him. What was going on?

Toris found him in a small room like a workshop, and reflected that the insides of both Marianne and François houses bore only passing resemblance to the proportions implied by their exteriors.  But he didn't have time to think about that now.

"What was that about?" Toris hissed to the small black cat crouched under a work bench. "Are you on the run from the palace or something?!"

Feliks the cat, of course, said nothing.

Toris opened his pack again and pulled off the merest crumb of spinach and ham pie.  

Feliks ate it rather reluctantly.

"Well?"

" _No_ ," Feliks said quietly.  "I promise it's nothing like that."

"So you _can_ remember something more?"

Feliks looked miserable.  "I... I think so. But I'm not sure.  I can't say, not yet. I'm sorry, Toris, you're going to have to trust me."

"Alright," said Toris.

"I promise you're not doing anything bad or wrong by helping me."

"Alright," said Toris again.  He wasn't sure what else to say.  

At that moment, Marianne and Arthur bustled in.

"How did you two get in _here_?" asked Arthur.

"Why are you sitting on the _floor_?" asked Marianne, but didn't wait for an answer.  "Well, we've been summoned to the palace. François and I, that is; the messengers arrived there shortly after you did.  They don't know about Arthur, the lucky so and so..."

"Both of you?" asked Feliks, clearly glad for the change of topic.  He stood up. "Won't that be... a bit awkward?"

"Ohhh, I expect it will be fine," said Marianne vaguely, and started opening and shutting drawers in the workbench as if looking for something.

"It's a challenge, but it was going to happen someday,"  Arthur said. "Of course, half the point of this whole arrangement was to avoid royal entanglements.  The bitter rivalry you know; both so good that they wouldn't appoint either?"

"That's quite the racket," Feliks said, eyebrows raised.  "And the other half?"

"Oh, money!" said Marianne cheerily.  "Not that I ever charge anyone double, unless they _really_ aggravate me.   _Anyway_ , the point is: we're going to the city first thing tomorrow morning, we can take the enchanted carriage and happy to give you a lift if you stay the night.  But right now I'm afraid I find myself unable to play the role of gracious host: we need to be getting on and doing in here, so why don't you two go out mushroom picking?"

"Because there aren't any mushrooms at this time," Toris said automatically.

Marianne smirked.  "You'd be surprised."

"Are you trying to get rid of us?" Feliks accused.

"Frankly yes," said Arthur.  "Just for a bit. We're going to be throwing around some strong magic and don't want you under our feet.  Give us a couple hours, there's good chaps."

"But..." Toris began.

Marianne put down a pair of pliers and coil of wire on the bench-top.  "Listen. We've examined you twice now and let me reassure you about this one thing.  Although there is nothing much either of can do with this spell, it is not going to get any worse than it is."

"It's not a timed terminal or anything like that," said Arthur, as if this explained matters.

"As to memories, that's tricky.  I don't quite understand how you'd lose them in the first place with this sort of curse, so it's a little hard to say, but... It shouldn't get worse.  I would say odds are good you will regain them in time."

A minute later, Feliks and Toris found themselves bundled out of the front door with a pair large baskets for mushrooms and instructions to stay away for a good hour at least.

❧❧❧

They walked in silence at first.  Toris didn't quite dare to press Feliks further about what was bothering him.  Feliks was quite capable of turning into a cat again to avoid answering questions.

But there _were_ mushrooms.  Scores of them.  

"I've never done this before," Feliks said, to Toris' surprise.  

"Never?"

"I'm sure of it.  Are these safe?"

"Yup!" Toris held up a small mushroom.  “Try.”

Feliks took it from his fingers straight into his mouth.

Toris felt his face heat up.

"Sorry," Feliks mumbled, with his mouth full and without breaking eye contact. "Cat habits I guess.”

They walked on.

"Now _these_ are the ones you have to look out for," Toris said, indicating another clump at the foot of a tree.

"Those are the same," Feliks objected.

"Not at all," said Toris.  "Look... Well, never mind, just trust me, alright?"

"Alright," said Feliks.  


	5. Chapter 5

Over dinner back at the house, Marianne asked Toris, in an offhand manner:

"So that pie, spinach and ham and proof against curses... How _did_ you make it?"

"I didn't do anything special," Toris said, "I just... did what I always do."

"Do you like cooking?" Arthur asked.

"Very much."

"And I bet you don't need recipes?" Marianne asked.

"I don't _need_ them," Toris said, wondering what this was about.   "I actually quite like reading them."

Arthur nodded.  "And these mushrooms you just picked.  Do that often?"

"Yes; but, uh, usually not til next month.  How come...?"

"That's not important!" Marianne sang out.  "Have you ever picked a bad one or poisoned anyone?"

"No!" said Toris, shocked at the suggestion.

"But I bet you don't say the rhyme over them to check which are good."

"What rhyme?" said Feliks.  "He definitely wasn't saying any rhyme."

"I don't," said Toris.  "But no one _really_ does that do they?  That's just... for children, that's just fun."

Marianne shook her head wordlessly, grinning broadly and Arthur looked incredulous.  "It's _not_ 'just fun'," he said.  "Poisonous toadstools are no joke, and most everyone would absolutely need to use the old rhyme!  Or some other check," he admitted, "I probably wouldn't use those words, but it's the same result: it's working a tiny bit of magic, to force the bad mushrooms to reveal themselves."

"But you don't need to do that," said Marianne.  It seemed to Toris that the house was very quiet, a listening quiet.  He didn't like it. "Because it's not hidden for you, is it?"

"I don't know what you're saying!" he burst out.  "I can't _do_ magic, maybe that's why I don't use the rhyme, it wouldn't work for me..."

"Maybe you can't do that kind of magic, college magic, rhymes and songs, shapes out of wire, but I am convinced Toris that you in possession of a very unusual—or at least, under-reported—kind of power.   Your cooking. Would you say it's as if you were listening to the ingredients, how they want to be used, almost? That's how someone once described it. And same with plants. You could heal with plants you know if you wanted to—"

Toris had had enough.  "That's—that's ridiculous! he said.  "That's like, a witch in a fairytale! Everyone knows that kind of _earth magic_ isn't REAL!"

Arthur and Marianne exchanged glances, and he suddenly realised they had been working together to box him in all through this conversation.  To his horror he felt tears spring to his eyes.

"Hey hey!"  It was Feliks.  "Can we just drop this now?  We've been walking all day, well Toris has, and _I'm_ super tired.   Let's do like we planned, back to the city tomorrow, in time for the big play.  Honestly, just knowing this spell isn't getting worse or whatever, that's enough."

❧❧❧

"Thank you, by the way," Toris said later as they lay side by side on camp beds in the large kitchen, where the big oven still gave off a pleasant heat.  "For taking the pressure off like that."

"No problem," yawned Feliks.  "Anyway it's true, I'm zonked and you're the one who was carrying me half the day."

"You weren't heavy," Toris said, and they both laughed.

"But seriously, thank _you_.  I mean what have I done but get under your feet, eat your food, uproot your life and sneeze at you?  I'm really sorry about all this trouble I've put you to."

"I honestly didn't think of it that way," said Toris, and found it was true.  "It's been... fun, almost."

"Really?"

"Yeah.  I'm just... I just wish we could do something about, you know, _you._ "

"Mmm." Feliks sighed.

To break the lengthening silence, Toris said, "What do you suppose the palace whats to see magicians about?"

"Oh, probably some coronation preparation or some such," said Feliks, off-handedly.  "You know it's not just a ceremony? There's a magic element, the monarch is like actually connected to the land?"

"Huh!"  He hadn't known that.  "Hey Feliks... If you don't—I mean, until you _do_ get your memory and everything back, why don't you come and stay with us, you can work at the theatre."

" _Could_ I?" He sounded touched and delighted.

"Yeah.  We always need more hands.  It's not a bad life.  I don’t suppose you’re an actor or anything?"

"Nooo."

"Thanks be. I can’t _stand_ the actors."

Feliks laughed softly.  "Thank you," he said again, and nothing else for a while.

Toris was almost falling asleep himself when he spoke again, so he could never be sure if he'd heard right.

He thought he heard Feliks say, "I wish... I wish I could.  That would be... very nice..."

There was a soft thump on the bed and when Toris turned to look, Feliks was a cat again, and fast alseep.

❧❧❧

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Toris woke from a dream of someone attacking the house with an artillery barrage to find Arthur shaking him awake.

"What time is it?" he asked groggily, and Feliks meowed.

"About six," said Arthur.  "There's someone here asking for you."

"For me?"  Toris threw on his shirt and rummaged for another bite of pie to turn Feliks human again.

"Come on."

In the parlour, wrapped in a blanket, hair wet, clutching a mug of tea and shivering, was Natasha.

❧❧❧

"She must have walked all night, poor child," Arthur said softly.

Natasha heard him and nodded.  "Just-tyna said you'd be here. Went to François' f-first but no one home..."

"You came to find me?" Toris asked.  "Why?"

Natasha clutched her nearly empty mug more closely and rocked back and forth.  "It's Ivan."

" _Ivan_?"  He hadn't thought about him all day.  His problems back at the theatre had seemed so small and unimportant in the scheme of things.

Natasha nodded.  She took a deep breath.  Each word seemed to cost her a great effort.  "Ivan's going to do something stupid. _So stupid_.  Have to stop him."

"What's he going to do?"

"He... I..." She began again.  "Some people. Came to our house last night.  To talk to Ivan. They didn't know I was there."

Of course they woulnd't, thought Toris; no one ever did notice Natasha the ghost.

"It's, it's General Zima.  He's going to do a spell—tomorrow at the play.  To... He's going to _replace_ Prince Ignatius.  With Ivan."

"General Zima?!" said Toris.

"The Prince!" said Arthur and Marianne together.

Feliks stared.  "Can he _do_ that?"

"A disguise?" Toris suggested.

"No, _not_ a disguise!" Natasha said shrilly.  "Ivan's going to _replace_ him!  He'll _be_ the Prince, just as if he always had been, they said no one will know any different.  And Ignatius will be—"

"Gone."  Arthur swore loudly.  He looked at Marianne, wide-eyed.  "Yes, yes he can do that—in the theatre, with all that power of belief, well I don't need to tell you— And if he does..."

" _Ivan_ will be sworn to the land or whatever it is at the coronation!!"  Toris hardly understood anything of what had just been said but he followed that far and it terrified him.  "Ivan is..." he glanced at Natasha; how to explain, "not a good choice," he finished weakly.

"Then General Zima will rule through him!" Feliks cried.  "It's a coup!"

"Children!" Marianne waved her arms for calm.  She was wearing an embroidered dressing gown quite as fine as her day clothes.  "Darlings, it is clear we must set off post-haste and do what we may to prevent this outrage.  Anyway, _we—_ " she gestured at Arthur— "must, and would appreciate your help."

Toris, Feliks and Natasha all nodded.

"The Prince is missing," Marianne announced.  "That's what we were told yesterday, and why the royal summons.  It seems reasonable to assume now this is all of a piece; getting Prince Ignatius out of the way before replacing him."

" _Out of the way_?" Toris echoed, horrified.  "Is he—"

"He's _missing_ ," Arthur said.  "That is as much as we can say for now."

"Our immediate task is stop the substitution this afternoon," said Marianne.  "Arthur—will you drive, and I'll take the short way and brief Justyna and Darius—they're still in charge?"  Toris nodded. Marianne frowned in thought. "We can't let everyone know or Zima will surely suspect and not make the attempt, but we'll need some help..."

"But, don't we _want_ to stop him?"

"We do," said Arthur, sounding very grim, "but... we need to let him try, reveal himself as a traitor or we've absolutely _no proof_ of anything and no power to stop him.  That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Quite," said Marianne, just as grim.  "Even were we to warn the Princess Hedvika, against the chief regent, what could she do?  They've already taken her brother."

Everyone was silent for a moment.  

"So then!" Marianne clapped her hands and smiled a manically bright smile.  "Everyone dress, breakfast in five minutes, out of the door in twenty."

❧❧❧

It was a good, if abbreviated breakfast; and as Marianne pointed out there was only so much to be achieved by way of preparation once they reached the theatre.  The "short way" was a linking magic between this house and François', but it could only be operated by the magicians, so she disappeared - literally - down a corridor at the back of the house, and the rest of them piled into a a horseless carriage.  The carriage could apparently be spelled to be driver-less as well as Arthur sat next to Feliks and drilled them all in their plan.

Which was all very well, Toris thought, except that it wasn't much of a plan at all.

They would have to hide themselves backstage or in the audience and stop Ivan and General Zima _only once they had started acting suspicious._  They didn't know when in the play this would happen, but Arthur assured them it would be obvious.  At which point, they would - _hopefully_ \- have a theatre-full of witnesses to the chief regents' treachery.

Unless they didn't manage to stop the spell in time, which case it would all be too late, Ivan would be the Prince and pretty soon none of them would even remember.

"And then we find the real Prince, somehow," said Feliks.

"If he isn't dead already," said Toris.  He was amazed at how calm his voice was.

Arthur nodded.  "If that part of the spell hasn't already gone too far."

Natasha, who had said nothing since breakfast, raised her eyes from her lap and said, "Better no prince at all then a Prince Ivan."

And she _loved_ her brother! thought Toris.  Didn't she? Could he possibly have been wrong about that?  Or—she loved him, but where Toris had misunderstood was thinking this blinded her to his negative qualities...

"From our, uh, brief acquaintance," said Feliks, "I totally agree.  And there's the Princess Hedvika..." His voice caught and trailed off.

"Are we going to _kill_ a _prince?_ " Toris asked.

" _No_ ," said Arthur.  "If it... well, we're going to trying our damnedest to stop _them_ killing him, what else can we do?  If we fail," he continued carefully, "the best we can hope is that he's far away.  The palace won't be far enough if that's where they have him. If he's _anywhere near_ the spell when it goes off, he really will be gone, erased from memory and existence itself.    It's _possible_ , I can't say for sure, that if he was... I don't know, ten miles? More? away, he'd be... left.  Still forgotten but still _there_ , a living human being."

Feliks looked green.  The cart was lurching something awful, going as fast as the spell would take it.


	6. Chapter 6

The hours in the theatre before the play began were easily the most surreal in Toris' life.  As soon as he walked back through the doors, he was mobbed with greetings, well wishes, demands as to where he'd been these past days, demands for help with costumes, set, did this lighting make the lead's face look washed out...

Ivan.  Saying how much he'd missed him, and wasn't today exciting; though it was a shame Prince Ignatius had a cold and was unable to attend they had been told.

He scarcely caught either of his parents alone for a moment, but though they too put on brave faces and tried to act normal, he knew that they knew,  Marianne having arrived ahead of them and filled them in.

Marianne had also apparently picked up a change of clothes en route and was the Fantastic François again.

Toris, Feliks, Arthur and François were to hide in the wings and wait, and watch, and try not to get in anyone's way.  The magicians' presence was explained to the rest of the cast and crew and something to do with the royal visit.

Natasha slipped quietly back into the prompt's seat and no one seemed even to notice.

The time came.  The doors opened.  It was a packed house, and the audience would have taken a long while to file in even without the additional issue of getting the royal party separately into the front stalls.  The extended entry music was beautiful. Toris couldn't really appreciate it properly.

He scanned the front row.  

"Princess Hedvika," Feliks whispered, and there was no doubt it was her: a girl with brown hair half-back and a nice, ordinary face, dressed in a green velvet dress and what was probably a very simple type of crown for day wear.  She was smiling bravely, but looked worried, as well she might: _she_ would know perfectly well her brother was not ill with a cold and was in fact missing without explanation.  Next to her sat—

"That must be General Zima..." Toris breathed.

Arthur grunted in affirmation.  "I can get a decently clear shot," he said under his breath, "but I wish she wasn't sitting so near by..."

The play began.  Nerves, on stage, seemed to quickly evaporate and the actors were on top form.  Even the sword ballet went off without a hitch. Toris saw Princess Hedvika's eyes light up a little with a smile at this point and thought, distantly, _Bet will be pleased, I'm glad we brought that back._ Mostly, he kept his eyes on the tall, brisk man with the silvery hair sitting to her left, who never smiled at all.

Continually intruding into his thoughts was the nearer fear that Feliks, despite what he said about having it well under control, would disappear into a cat any moment—and the still more nightmarish fear that despite what Arthur and Marianne, not to mention François, had said, this time he would be unable to turn back.  He reached for Feliks' hand in the dark. Feliks gave his hand a squeeze and held it.

Towards the end of the third act, by which time they were all nearly sick with tension and nerves, it happened.

Ivan, who had been shifting scenery in the blackout, had stayed crouched behind a flat representing a Tree of Wisdom.  Just as the heroine knelt before the fairy ruler of the forest downstage, he stepped out.

It took a moment for anyone to notice, engrossed as they were in the excellent performances of the actors.

Once they did—it wasn't so much a murmur of disquiet, less than that, only a shifting in their seats, glances aside.  The lead actor caught the mood and stumbled in her lines.

By that time General Zima was on his feet, speaking unintelligible words, and the shifting in the stalls had become a murmur indeed.

In the centre of the stage, the air shimmered, bellied and bulged like a bubble.

"Stop him!" Toris cried, as Ivan took a step towards it—

—as everyone in the wings rushed forwards at once—

—as Zima seized the Princess from her seat next to him and called in a resounding voice, "Nobody move!"

Nobody moved.  Except Feliks, still propelling himself onto the stage now shouting: "VIKA!"

"She won't be harmed," Zima was continuing, "and she will remember none as this so long as— _that's the Prince Ignatius!  Seize him!!"_

To Toris' dumbfounded horror, bolts of magic shot from batons of two sober suited palace officials to either side of Zima and Hedvika, and Feliks was knocked sprawling.

And Feliks was... the missing Prince Ignatius?!

Without thinking, Toris barrelled forwards—at his side so did Arthur and François.  They smacked straight into something like a wall unyielding and invisible around the stage.

"You are _joking_ me," Arthur said thickly, his nose bleeding.

The palace officials mounted the stage steps, apparently unaffected by the magical boundary, and hauled Feliks, fuming and swearing worse than Arthur, to his feet between them.

All this took about four seconds.

The bubble of magic, whatever it was, had grown almost to the height of a person now.  

"Now!" General Zima rasped to Ivan, not loosening his hold on Hedvika for an instant.

Ivan seemed for the moment as paralysed as the rest of the crowd.  With a seeming effort he shook himself and looked at the growing hiatus in the stuff of the air, eyes wide.

And then Toris heard the last thing he expected.  His mother's voice. Clear and strong projecting all the authority of years of directorial experience across the tense silence of the theatre from the balcony.  

"Ivan Braginsky, clear the stage!  This instant. What do you think you're doing?"

This seemed to surprise Zima too, and evidently he had no one to hand on the balcony.  He gestured and another grey suited official dashed for the doors, footsteps ringing.  But it would take him a minute to reach upstairs, and the crowds were not making it easy for him.

"What did he promise you?" Justyna shouted.  "Kingship? Really? He's betraying the love and memory of his dear friends the old king and queen, he's _killing their son_ to set you up in that place, do you think for one moment that—"

"SILENCE!" roared Zima, whirling around and Toris guessed trying to see where she was speaking from.

"DO YOU THINK THAT HE WOULD HESITATE to replace you the very _instant_ you fail him in the slightest?  No, why should he wait? Why should he keep you for one day after you've served your purpose this afternoon?"

 _Listen,_ Toris willed. _For once in your life listen to her!_

General Zima shoved Princess Hedvika at yet another lackey— _how many of them  were in on this?!_ —and thundered up the steps to the stage.

"IVAN!   _NOW_ , you idiot boy!"

"Do you think he cares about you?" Feliks yelled, " _He will throw you away just as easily_!"

Ivan stopped hesitating.

He leapt at Zima, snatching up a sword which he held to general's throat.

Again, everything happened once.

Hedvika and Feliks stumbled free—the invisible wall collapsed and volleys of spells fired from not only Arthur and François but from at least twenty members of the audience—most went far wide, but the two guards on stage were stunned instantly and the Tree of Wisdom came unearthed with a crack of planking straight onto the head of General Zima who was then immediately jumped on by the entire cast and Darius.  "You _fools!_ " Zima screamed before another spell silenced him, " _IT WAS A PROP SWORD!"_

Toris held onto the side curtain to stop himself collapsing.  He was dizzy, over-breathing, laughing hysterically. _Everyone was taking hostages!!_

Prop sword or not though, he thought, more sane now, as a tech fixed Zima's hands to his sides with the spell they usually used to secure lighting cans to the rig in the ceiling: Ivan probably could have crushed his windpipe.

Ivan was on the ground, panting and clutching his side like he’d been running for a long time.

" _Right_ ," said Arthur over the chaos, "we may need witnesses later same as they did, but I think what we need now is a little _CALM!_ "

The word rang out and Arthur flung his arms wide.  Toris seemed to see everything outside of the lighted stage as through wobbly glass. Nothing out there moved.  The entire auditorium was frozen in time.

François gave him a look that seemed to say, "Really, Arthur?"

He shrugged.  "I wont deny I've been spoiling for a fight since that invisible wall nonsense.  That was a cheap shot."

Everyone on stage breathed out.

Toris looked at the person he had been calling Feliks, or Lucky, for three days, and who turned out to be the Prince of the realm and a total stranger.

"You're the _Prince_?"

"Toris I can explain—"

"May I suggest we leave further explanations until later?" François cut in, "The thing to do _now_ is to restore Prince Ignatius to, uhm, man's estate."

And François and Arthur turned to Toris.

“Me?” he said, and his voice sounded pathetically small in the unnaturally silent theatre.

“We don’t need to bother about that _now_ though, do we?” said Feliks, but he looked like he was concentrating hard on holding back hiccups again.

"Actually we do," Arthur said gently.  "It’s always best to undo magic that was done first... first.  This spell," he indicated the magic bubble, "is conventional magic and we should be able to deal with it, but I don't want to risk dissolving this spell while the prince is still in his current... situation."

"Whether it was Zima or someone else," François explained, "whoever worked that cat spell was using _your_ kind of magic, Toris.  We can't do anything with it.  You can."

“I... I can’t,” he said weakly, and found himself babbling, “I can’t do magic—I’ve never been able to do magic, I can’t even do the lighting effects, I...”

"You can," said François.  "You can do _this_ —you already have.  Toris, when you appeared at my door and fed a cat a piece of food that turned him human, actor though I am, there was nothing fake in how impressed—how astonished—I was."

Then his father pushed through the muddled crowd of actors and crew towards him.

"Clare’s right," Darius said, and if Toris hadn’t had so much else on his mind he might have laughed at the way his father apparently saw right through the marvellous Marianne and the fantastic François to the girl who was the star of the Fortune all those years ago, “if it was your food that turned Feliks—sorry, Prince Ignatius, his Highness I mean—human again, that was real strong magic.”

“Try to think back,” Arthur suggested, “what did you do?"

“I don’t _know,_ ” Toris insisted, but as he did so he remembered:

Standing at the stove, putting the ham and spinach pie into the oven, " _I wish you could tell me what’s bothering you,"_ he'd said.

As he worked with the food and listened to the ingredients as he always did...  Was it as simple as that?

Odd socks and bodkins!! he thought to himself, remembering Feliks' phrase: a wish as vague as that, it was pretty darn _lucky_ it took the form of something so helpful!

 _But I still don’t know.._. he thought.  "How can I..." he muttered to himself.

And then: "Toris.  It’s alright," said Feliks, ten feet from him, his voice bright and brave, "don't worry about me, I'll be fine!"  Only he was Prince Ignatius _not_ Feliks at all, and it was all a _lie_...

Toris couldn’t deal with facing the feelings this brought up right now so he closed his eyes.

Without distraction he seemed to see in his knapsack the remnants of the—rather stale now—food, glowing like the magic bubble, or a little alive like a plant, spelled with his wish.

And now he knew what to look for, realised it was magic, he turned his attention to Feliks and he could see—although it wasn't really _seeing—_ the web of the spell all around him.   And he could see too how his wish spelled to the pie had worked on it to dissolve or burn it or unravel just a small section which gave Feliks a chance to escape its clutches for a while before it regrew around him.

Now he saw what he had to do to attack and dismantle the spell directly.  He reached out with mind and pulled it up from the roots. The strands writhed a moment, and withered away.

He opened his eyes.

"I... I've done it, I think."

There wasn't so much as a flash of light.  He felt very tired and quite hungry.

François squinted at the Prince.  "That you have," she said.

"Well done, Toris," said his father, and enfolded him in a hug.

"So, how do you feel?" Toris asked a moment later.  "Still like you’re about to hiccup back into a cat?"

Prince Ignatius stretched and rolled his jaw experimentally “A—a little? But I think that’s only like how you feel when you’ve cured the hiccups and you’re not quite sure you really have, you know? Wow, it’s going to be _weird_ not turning into a cat all the time!"

Toris laughed weakly. “I suppose.”

“...Toris,” Ignatius began.

But Toris saw a movement over his shoulder, and felt his own blood freeze in his veins.

Ivan was on his feet, walking shakily towards the spell that was still bellying and swelling the patch of shimmering air centre stage.


	7. Chapter 7

"STOP HIM!" François bellowed at Arthur.

"I can't!"

"Arthur!! Forget the punters and _stop him_!!"

"He’s too close to the spell!!"

The wobbly glass wall around the stage collapsed and the noise level multiplied as three hundred panicked audience members came unstuck.

But the magic Arthur and a number of other people were throwing at Ivan turned pale and sickly or veered off and vanished as it neared the magic bubble.

"Hey Ivan!!"

It was Prince Ignatius.

 _Run_ , Toris wanted to yell, absurd, impossible, but: _run away run away get ten miles, you might still be safe..!!_

But Ivan, who had been moving slowly as if wading, stopped a moment—either Arthur’s spell or the Prince's words seeming to have reached him after all.

"Hey, Ivan, stop this alright?" the Prince continued, advancing half a step.  "You don't want to be a prince, BELIEVE me, it's nothing but hard work—"

Ivan spun around and glared at him.  "Just because _you_ think so!  Sounds like you're not worthy of the luck you were born with!" he spat, with real venom.

"Whoa, I'm not saying I'm more, more worthy than you or anything!  That's exactly it, you know? You walk through there, and you'll be leaving _you_ behind.  No one will remember Ivan Braginsky, ever again.  There'll be only Prince Ivan."

Ivan let out a laugh that was like a sob.  He was sweating under the stage lights and shaking all over.  " _So what?_ You were right!  Justyna was right! He didn't care about me!  _No one_  cares about me.  But if I'm King... they'll have to!"

"It... oh boy, the degree to which it does not work like that..."

But Ivan wasn't listening to him now.  "Even you, Toris," he cried, turning anguished eyes on him, "Even you _—_ I thought you were my friend but you chose _him_!"

This was so monstrously unfair that Toris couldn't even think for a moment.  His legs took a step forward without him.

"Ivan—"

Then he stopped.  Then he did think.  What was he going to say?   _Don't do it Ivan, I promise I'll be your best friend from now on if you just don't_?   _I'll do anything to smooth things over..._ But hadn't that been what he'd been saying his whole life, to everyone, whether not they'd even demanded it of him?  

...Maybe now with Feliks' life and the entire kingdom at risk was a strange time to stop being so obliging, but at the least it wasn't going to be the FIRST thing he tried!  

"Ivan _,"_ Toris repeated, with all the will he could muster.  "You can be better than this. Be better!"

Ivan stared at him for a second.  Then he rubbed his sleeve across his eyes and turned back towards the bubble.

"Anyway," Toris yelled after him, "your sister—did you ever think that she might be sad you never spend any time with her anymore? But you don't see her behaving like this!"

"She came to find us!" Ignatius shouted too.  "When she found out what you were doing, she didn't go the authorities or to the palace, she came to find Toris and me!  Because she still cares about you—"

"Natasha?" asked Ivan, in bland surprise.

And Natasha plummeted from the rig above, landing heavily on Ivan and knocking him flat three feet from the bubble.

No one had seen how or when she got up there.

❧❧❧

Arthur and François leapt towards the spell, as the handy technician fixed Ivan's arms and legs together too.

After a few moments examining the bulging centre of the magic, Arthur turned back to Toris, a worried expression on his face.

"Toris, I'm sorry.  We need your help one more time.  It seems that one of the strands holding this magic in place... is yours."

Toris felt dizzy again.  

"It's alright—it's alright." François was at his side, supporting him as he wobbled on jelly legs.

He looked at the spell as he had at the spell around the Prince, and he could see it now.  

And he remembered again.  That night. His other wish over his cooking, in his quiet, still time.

_I wish Ivan would just go off the royal court or whatever. I wish he'd never come to the Fortune at all._

“I did this?” He was trembling all over. “I _did_ this, I nearly made Ivan the prince and and Feliks disappear?”

“No!” said François.

Toris gestured feebly, and his strand of magic came loose and flickered into nothing.  It was that easy, now. But he was still shaking.

"You didn’t know your powers," said Arthur,  "didn’t even know you had powers. Undirected magic like that takes the easiest shape—like bubbles connecting the shortest distance between two points, you know?—and very often that’s to fall in with another spell that already in train... this is why there’s all that bother about magical shielding...” He seemed to realise he was rambling.   “But you see dear, this is why you really must come and train with us to learn to recognise and control your magic.  Like you did just then. Not to mention it would be wonderful for us—we wouldn't be teaching you so much as you'd be teaching us!"

"Train with you??" Toris echoed.

For a moment, no one answered him.  Arthur and François were dismantling the rest of the substiution spell.

Then François returned, and took his hands.  "If you would? If you would honour us."

His mind was racing.  When Marianne first said that he could perform magic, he'd doubted it and was scared.  But now he had really done magic, on purpose, and it was good and it worked and he no longer doubted.  But he was back in the theatre, this place where he’d been all his life, and with the royal family visiting—everything as it should be—and he was probably only going to ever see Feliks again from a distance at his coronation...

He couldn’t go off and learn _magic._

"Toris!" It was his mother, pushing through a bunch of actors to him.  "Toris, you don't have to do anything; no one is making you,"—and the steely look in Justyna's eye dared even Arthur or François to contradict her—"It's up to you: do you _want_ to go and learn magic?"

 _"Of course I do_ ," Toris cried, "but then who will stay here!?"

" _ME,_ you idiot!!"

Raivis, his youngest brother, came crashing on to the stage.

"You're such a—self-absorbed—self-sacrificing—arrogant— _martyr—!  Y_ ou never even realised, did you?  I hate that school, _writing_ is what I want to do, I want to write plays, and produce them too, but with you here and you're the eldest..."

Eduard, the middle child, followed at a more sedate pace.   "He's right; he's great at magic, but he he's even better at writing.  And it's certainly true he hates school."

"I wrote this play!!" Raivis yelled, not finished.  "And edited it too and everyone says it's good!"

"It's brilliant, Raivis," Toris said.  "I'm so sorry, I had no idea—I had some idea but not enough.  Of _course_ you can stay here, if it's alright with Mum and Dad.  And..." He looked at Arthur and François, hope welling up nside him, "and if it's alright with you, l'd love to learn to use my magic."

"I'm so proud of you," Justyna said.  "Of all of you."

Everyone looked at Eduard.  "What?" he asked. "I'm perfectly happy at the college.  I'm going to become the greatest spell-singer there's ever been, same as I always said."

"I don't doubt it for a second," Justyna said.  "I just came to say: Darius is going to announce an extra twenty minute interval to clean up and, ah, possibly get some people arrested, after which THE PLAY WILL CONTINUE.  So," she raised her eyes and voice to the sundry actrors and crew still on stage. "Twenty minutes to curtain, everyone, starting act 3 scene 5 over from the top; twenty minutes!"

" _Before we move on completely from the subject of magicians_ ," Prince Ignatius said loudly over the noise of shouted orders and shifting scenery.  "I have a royal appointment to make, if that's alright with everyone."

François sighed dramatically.  " _Must_ you?"

"I mean, yes I really must.”

"Botheration."

Arthur wrapped an arm around her shoulders.  "Love, you've more than earned it."

"I know I've _earned_ it! But I have gone to rather a lot of trouble to _avoid_ it at the same time."  Then her sulky expression cleared, and François shrugged magnificently and smiled.  "Very well! I accept—on one condition. Let it be a joint appointment."

"Between 'François and Marianne'?" Ignatius asked, raising his eyebrows.

"No.  And let it be Marianne—much as responsibility would probably do the Fantastic François good, precedent is important.  I shall live my accustomed life of feckless ease, and the appointment shall be shared between Marianne and _Arthur."_

"Oh, alright!" said Ignatius, quite unconcerned.  "Marianne and Arthur it is."

"I don't know if anyone _noticed_ ," said Arthur peevishly, "but I did freeze time in a local radius back there.  Not to blow my own trumpet or anything."

"You never do, darling, that's precisely your trouble," said François. "That's why you need me to do it for you."

❧❧❧

And that was almost everything.

The rest of the palace constabulary had been summoned and had arrived and taken away Zima, the treacherous guards, and Ivan.  Prince Ignatius himself had called for clemency in his case, and Toris felt happier to know Ivan wouldn't be treated too harshly.  He also, however, felt this didn't mean that he should be given another chance to work in the theatre having, after all, spectacularly ruined a play performed before royalty.

Ignatius hugged his sister.  Who had to be briefly torn away from shaking Natasha's hand and congratulating her.  Hedvika seemed to have adopted Natasha. Who was looking almost flushed, much less ghost-like than usual.  Toris really hoped she would be alright now.

And so... what remained.

Ignatius rejoined Toris at the side of the stage.  No one was paying even the Prince much mind for a minute in all the bustle.

"Can we talk?"

"Love to," said Toris, and hoped it didn't sound sarcastic.  "I mean, yes, of course, your Highness." He was still dazed.

"I _was_ confused, my memory was all fuddled by being a cat.  But I. I did remember things sooner than I told you I did."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Toris asked.  "Didn't you trust me?" _Not that that would have been so unreasonable!_ he chided himself, _You'd only known each other for, what, a day?_

"No, no, nothing like that, I just.  I don't know. Didn't want to pressure you, I guess.  I've been getting a lot of that lately, as you might imagine.  And after that, it would be have been So Drama of me:  _the prince is lost, oh and by the way, I'M THE PRINCE?!_   Come on."

François, Arthur and Princess Hedvika had drifted over to stand near them again.

"—and, and my name really IS Feliks!" he continued.  "—it's what my tutors called me, and Vika, because I kept doing stupid things and not dying you know—so I wasn't lying about that, it really did feel like a sign when you all called me Lucky.  Oh Toris, _please_  don't call me Ignatius and ugh certainly not _your highness!_ "

"We knew of course," said Arthur.  "We did a locating spell for the Prince while the two of you were out mushrooming, and those things may be tricksy and unreliable, but they're able to get a fairly conclusive result when the person in question is a scant _five hundred yards_ away.  We just assumed you had a good reason for keeping it quiet!"

Feliks shrugged helplessly.   "After that I was just so scared.  I felt like, if I acknowledged it I'd be done for, so I just..."

"You could have gone away," Toris said.  "In the cart, when Arthur said about being near the spell would erase your life..."  (And that, Toris realised now, had probably been precisely  _why_  Arthur had said it, to give him a chance.)  "I remember your face, I thought you were just travel sick."

"Just jumped out the cart and run for it?  If I'd done that, I wouldn't be much worthy to be king, would I?  And... I definitely wouldn't be deserving of that happy, normal life here we talked about, here with you. "

There was a pause.

Then Justyna stepped up and said, "If you think life in the theatre is _normal_ , young man..." which made everyone laugh.

"You did pretty great," said Vika.  "But, sugar plum fairies, Feliks, why didn't you tell me what happened to you? Why didn't you come find me?"

"I was going to,” said Feliks, "I was going to today, going to find some way.  I couldn't go near the palace though? could I? Zima would recognise that cat—why _did_ they cat me instead of kill me anyway?"

Arthur hummed.  "I have a morbid theory about that.  Quite apart from any guilt he might have felt, it was in Zima's interests for you to wander off.  No prisoner to keep, no... body to dispose of. Even a transfigured one would leave traces."

"Arthur darling," said François, "you always know how to lighten the mood."

"Ew.  Forget I asked."  Feliks glared around at the small crowd that had reformed around him.  "Hey, can me and Toris like _actually_ talk a minute?   _Alone_?  Thanks."

❧❧❧

"So..." Feliks began.  

"I suppose I won’t be seeing you again," said Toris, and it felt awful.  "Do you want to at least... I could show you round the theatre before you go?"  

Feliks' scoffed, awkwardness suddenly falling from his royal shoulders.  "You're not getting rid of me that easy! Why do you think I appointed those two royal magicians?  I intend to see a _lot_ of you in future."  He grinned.

"I mean," said Toris, feeling his own mouth turn up into a smile again, "There was I naively assuming you appointed them because they're both sort of extremely good at magic."

"Oh, that too, that too, but it’s not like we’ve needed an _official_ royal magician before, I don't need to Appoint them just for that.  I am going to be king, you know. I could see them any time I felt like."

"Then, you could see _me_ any time you feel like, your Kingness."

"I'm very glad you agree, and, _seriously:_  Kingness?"

"You didn't like Highness," Toris pointed out.

"I wasn't aware of the dire alternatives!  Anyway. Show me round another time. Next time we both visit.  Right now, I want to watch the rest of the play."

They went to take their seats together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...For the prompt: "Poland is a fussy cat Lithuania rescues" _and then some_ , eh?!
> 
> I mentioned the Diana Wynne Jones influence, and I'm indebted to her writing for the general mood of this and in particular to _Howl's Moving Castle_ / _House of Many Ways_ for flashy magic-users who try to slither out of their responsibilities but not _really_ , for Toris' eldest child complex, and for Marianne's "modish dress in peacock blue".
> 
> Clare/Francois/Marianne deserves an entire prequel tbh but I don't know if I'll be the one to write it!!
> 
> thank you so so much if you read this far, I don't know how or why I attempted to write PLOT for a secret santa, or at all honestly. If you enjoyed, please drop me a lil comment if you like <3


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